Multiple volume creation in one single
operation: You can now create a few volumes together, instead of
creating each volume separately. You can see how it's done in the
example screenshots below, marked in a blue rectangle.

Consistent volume names across the vSphere environment: In previous versions it was difficult to identify your volumes through VMware vSphere’s panels and
wizardsdue to the long-form name given to them. For example, this is what your Add
Storage wizard may have looked like:

But which Disk/LUN is the one I am looking for?Now when you create a volume, the name you provide is used as
the VMware’s Disk/LUN name in the vSphere environment, making it much
easier to view and manage.

Simple multipath policy enforcement: This feature enforces the multipath policy either per storage array or per single volume, overriding VMware's defaults.

To set the policy for an entire XIV
storage system, go to the IBM Storage tab, right click on the relevant storage
system, choose Set Multipath Policy Enforcement, and then select the
appropriate option:

From now on, for each
new volume you create on the storage system, the IBM storage plug-in enforces the chosen MP policy. Alternatively,
if you choose Disable Multipath Policy Enforcement, no MP policy is
enforced (in
such a case, VMware’s default MP policy for the storage array will be in effect).

Just note that this feature is
designed mostly for ESX/i versions 4.1 or earlier, where the default multipath policy set for the IBM XIV storage system was not
Round Robin (RR). In ESXi 5.0
or later, the default is RR.

These enhancements also apply to other IBM storage systems that the plug-in supports. In addition, version 3.0.0 introduces support for IBM Storwize V7000 Unified and IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage (SONAS) as well as various bug fixes. You can check out the release notes for more
details.

After you’ve heard all that, you can now go ahead and download the IBM Storage Management Console for VMware vCenter version 3.0.0 along with its documentation from the IBM Fix Central.

That’s it!

We’d love to hear your thoughts and comments, so please share them with us!